1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to improvements in audio-visual equipment, and more particularly, pertains to a new and improved tape guide for audio-visual equipment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of the audio-visual equipment, it has been a general practice to employ tape guides on both sides of a tape head assembly to guide the tape past the tape head or tape heads. Such prior art tape guides have been unsatisfactory in that the tape guides mounted on horizontal surfaces and required precise vertical alignment of each tape guide with respect to the tape head or tape heads in the tape head assembly so that tape was guided between the tape guides and past the tape head or tape heads of the tape head assembly. Also, the horizontally mounted tape guides would sometimes result in not only misalignment of the tape being guided past the tape head or tape heads, but also would cause friction wear on the tape itself. Additionally, the prior art tape guides were either stamped or pressed from sintered metal yielding tape guides having wide ranges of tolerance and being extremely expensive to manufacture. Finally, two prior art tape guides of different structure were required for each tape deck, one tape guide for mounting upstream of the tape head assembly and another tape guide for mounting downstream of the tape head assembly.
This invention provides a vertically symmetrical, low-cost, high precision, molded tape guide.